Top 5 Free Game Development Tools To Make Your Own Games

How to Make your Own Games – Top Game Development Tools

Do you have any idea to make your own game but lacking with free tools or weak in programming? Here is an opportunity for you to make your dream game come true. Yes! You can now make a game on your own. Some games don’t even need to be programmed by you. There are plenty of free game development tools that help your dream game come true. Yo can make use of those tools in making your game.

And of course, this doesn’t mean that developing a game is easy. Even some simple games take a lot of effort and time to make it look and feel good by users. But thankfully, the game developing tools help us to develop a game little faster. For instance, a game that takes one year for completion might be finished in 6 months or maybe even faster than that.

Below are top 5 free game development tools:

1. Construct 2:

Construct 2 is the best option if you aren’t good at programming or coding. This game development tools are completely GUI-driven. That means everything is obtained through drag-and-drop. Game logic and variables are implemented using the design features provided by the app itself. Unfortunately, coding is not available even if you want to write code.

The best thing about Construct 2 is that it can export to dozens of different platforms and formats. You can export to HTML5, Windows Store, Chrome Web Store, or Facebook. With a paid copy, you can also export to Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, and more. There’s no need to change a single thing in your game to accommodate these various options.

Construct 2 has some of the best and most comprehensive documentation. In addition, there are hundreds of tutorials that will help you understand the concepts from basic to advanced. The forum community is extremely active if you ever need assistance.

Most programmers have no skills in art, music, or animations. But that’s fine with Construct 2 because you can always browse and purchase ready-made assets from the Store. Most asset packs are just a few dollars, but the professional-grade stuff can cost $30 or beyond. You can also buy sample games with the source which can be helpful for learning new tips and tricks.

The free version has all the core features but is limited to 100 events, 4 object layers, 2 simultaneous special effects, access to only a small portion of the included sample assets. There isn’t any permission to sell your games. The Personal license is $130and lifts all these restrictions.

2. Game Maker: Studio:

GM:S allows you to create entire games using drag-and-drop interface for variables and game logic. But unlike Construct 2, GM:S grants more power through its GameMaker Language. It’s a C-like scripting language with a lot of flexibility.

Once your game is done, you can export to any number of platforms and formats without having to adjust your code. The free version only allows Windows export. The Professional version can export to platforms like Android, iOS, and HTML5 using modules. These modules must be purchased separately.

GM:S has been since 1999, and it’s still more active than most other free game development tools out there. New versions with feature updates are released at regular intervals. There’s even a brand new version called Game Maker Studio 2 in the works. This GM:S 2 is being rewritten from scratch with even more power in mind.

3. Unity:

Unity or Unreal Engine are free game development tools. These are used by those who are interested in making 3D games. It also supports to develop 2D games as well. It supports assets from the likes of 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage, Cinema 4D, Blender, and more. Unity didn’t come up with component-entity design. Everything in this game is an object and various components can be attached to each object. Each component controls some aspects of the object’s behavior and logic.

Unity uses C# and its own custom programming language to make most out of it. Between Unity and Unreal Engine, Unity is said to be easy to learn. Unity has a number of tutorials to get started with it. Unity has the widest export support than any other game engine. They are Windows, Mac, Linux, WebGL, Xbox, Playstation, Android, iOS, Facebook. It also includes all kinds of VR systems like Oculus Rift and Steam VR, as well as several gaming consoles like PS4, XB1, Wii U, and Switch.

Unity allows you to have a minimap system in your game. Not only that, it supports commercial-grade networking solution, 3D models, HUD graphics, and environmental textures, a dialog system for your action-adventure RPG. You can buy all these and more on the Unity Asset Store for free.

4. Godot Engine:

Like Unity, Godot also supports the creation of both 2D and 3D games. But Godot’s support is far better than Unity. The 2D aspect of the engine was carefully designed from the start. This means better performance, fewer bugs, and a cleaner overall workflow.

Godot’s approach to game architecture is unique where everything is divided into scenes. A scene is a collection of elements like sprites, sounds, and/or scripts. You can then combine multiple scenes into a bigger scene. Again those scenes can be combined into even bigger scenes. This hierarchical design approach makes it very easy to stay organized and modify individual elements whenever required.

Godot uses a drag-and-drop system for maintaining scene elements. But each of those elements can be extended through the built-in scripting system, which uses a custom Python-like language called GDScript. It’s easy to learn and fun to use, so you should give it a try even if you have no coding experience.

Godot can expand to multiple platforms right out of the box, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, and HTML5. Extra purchases or licenses aren’t necessary, though there are some restrictions. This has some advanced features built-in itself. There is at least one major release every year. It explains how it has so many great features already: physics, post-processing, networking. It includes all kinds of built-in editors, live debugging and hot reload, source control, and more.

5. Unreal Engine 4:

Unreal Engine 4 is the most professional of all the above tools. It was developed by the masters in the industry. They know what’s needed in a top-shelf engine and what it takes to deliver next-generation features. One of UE4’s driving principles allows you to iterate and develop as quickly as you can. So you get features like live debugging, hot reloading, a streamlined asset pipeline, instant game previews. It includes hundreds of assets and systems like artificial intelligence, terrain, cinematic tools, post-processing effects, and more.

There is no need to develop any coding for this tool. This makes it easy for those who are bad in programming. The unique selling point of UE4 is its Blueprint system. This system lets you create game logic without any code. It’s advanced enough that you can create entire games, even complex ones, without ever opening a source editor. But if you want to code your own Blueprint, this will allow you to do that as well.

The UE4 is one of the game development tools that has over 800 tutorials in the YouTube Channel that take you through every inch of the engine. Most of those videos are between 20 and 60 minutes long. If you need step-by-step guidance, UE4 tutorial has covered that too. UE4 allows exporting to multiple platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, HTML5, PS4, XB1, and more.